Tuesday, January 29, 2008 6:14 PM CST
Americans need help understanding nutritional information
By STEWARD TRUELSON, For the JG/T-C
Almost everyone is familiar with the English nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat. “Jack Sprat could eat no fat. His wife could eat no lean. And so between the two of them, they licked the platter clean!” The Sprats had simplified their food choices; most of us aren’t that sure what to eat.
Understanding nutritional information ranks right up there today with understanding federal income tax forms. We are puzzled and need help.
“What we see is that there is confusion, there is misinformation and there is an overload of information (about nutrition),” confirms Rachel Cheatham, director of science and health communications for the International Food Information Council (IFIC), an organization that regularly surveys consumers.
Nutritional information is about to get even more confusing because some supermarkets are coming up with their own rating systems. Maine-based Hannaford Supermarkets has a “guiding stars” program that rates foods sort of like movies. One, two or three stars represent good, better or best in terms of nutritional values. Another system to be tried on the West Coast at Raley’s stores is the Overall Nutritional Quality Index or ONQI score. Thousands of products will be rated on a scale of zero to 100, with 100 being the most nutritious.
Losing weight is the overriding concern when it comes to dietary change. According to IFIC’s 2007 Food and Health Survey, 75 percent of Americans are concerned about their weight, a jump from 66 percent a year earlier. While many consumers say they are trying to cut calories, only 11 percent in the IFIC survey could correctly estimate the number of calories they should be taking in per day for a person of their age and weight. Only 31 percent correctly understand that calories from any source contribute equally to weight gain.
Cheatham says one of the most important things consumers need to learn and apply is the concept of energy balance. “If you overeat and don’t exercise enough then, yes, you will have weight gain. But again I think you have to look at the total diet, and I wouldn’t single out any one food as this is all good or this is all bad. It has to be total diet,” she adds.
The mistake Cheatham says that most of us make is not exercising more to compensate for the times we overindulge. According to the IFIC survey, only 16 percent of the consumers asked said they consciously tried to exercise more that day or the next day after overeating.
Farmers want consumers to be knowledgeable about food and nutrition because an educated, healthy consumer is their best customer, especially today when so many fad diets exist that are very restrictive and negative. “I think we are missing the boat,” says Cheatham. “You have to turn the equation around and tell consumers what is good, what is healthy to eat. Give them as many positive messages as we can, and those foods that maybe aren’t the healthiest on the charts, don’t eat them everyday in high quantity.“
Cheatham says there are simple tools consumers can use to better understand their own nutritional needs. The USDA web site, www.mypyramid.gov, helps users figure out the calories they need on a daily basis and where to get them — from every food group. It is a tool that surely would have benefited the Jack Sprat family.
Steward Truelson is a member of the American Farm Bureau Federation
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
|
